New Roads School
New Roads School is a limited edition live CD/DVD double disc album featuring John Taylor, released in 2010. About the album The album is a limited edition item of only 1000 copies and is a recording of the New Roads Music Festival & Expo show in Los Angeles CA (USA), on 20 March 2010, held between 1200pm-4.00pm. John Taylor joined the New Roads School in celebrating 15 years of education by performing at the event, a festival he helped to conceive. New Roads School is a private K-12 school in Los Angeles, situated on four campuses. Founded in 1995, its unique focus on the arts is the centerpiece of its broad curriculum. Students are free to explore a number of artistic fields, music, creative writing, visual arts, film, dance and more. The school also strives to be diverse, inclusive and generous: 40-50% of its annual budget goes toward need-based financial aid. The event’s musical performances featured students, alumni and faculty from the school, as well as some special guests, including Taylor, Stewart Copeland (of The Police), Raul Pacheco (of Ozomatli) and John Densmore (of The Doors). During the day John Taylor performed on five songs including cover versions of "Music" (Madonna), "Crazy" (Gnarls Barkley) and "We Are Going To Be Friends" (White Stripes). All proceeds benefited the financial aid program at the New Roads School. The album sleeve was designed by Nick Egan, who also designed the cover of The Wedding Album and directed Duran Duran music videos including "Ordinary World" and "All You Need Is Now". Comments from John Taylor “My step daughter came (to the school) for a couple of years, and my daughter’s here now. About a year ago, I met the headmaster and talked about helping them celebrate their 15th anniversary. The idea that I had was to produce an event where we played 15 songs, one song for each of the 15 years and to record a CD.” “It’s a very different music program. At my school, it was all about the orchestra, the choir. I remember asking “Could I play saxophone?” and being rebuffed. And guitar. They weren’t interested in those instruments. It was all classical instruments; that was all they were interested in." “Here, they’re so open, and the students are being encouraged to program, to play electronic instruments. They have the world drum band playing with us today. New Roads is unusually diverse. That’s their whole deal. It’s been enlightening.” “Michael Abels is the head of music at the school, and he pulled (the set list) together, I thought it’d be fun not to have that agenda. And I found he came to the table with really interesting song choices.” “It was an idea that turned into a lot of work for everybody involved, but it’s been really rewarding, and today’s the live presentation, the summation of the project,” John said during rehearsal that day. Track listing #"We Are Going To Be Friends" #"Your Woman" #"Crazy" #"Seven Nation Army" #"Wonderwall" #"Together Again" #"Music" #"Otherside" #"God Put A Smile On Your Face" #"Home Town Glory" #"Undone (The Sweater Song)" #"Brown Eyes" #"The Monkeys Are Breaking Out of The Zoo" #"House of Cards" #"Sol (Batucada)" #"You Learn" Links http://www.newroads.org/explore/15th_anniversary_highlights.php Category:Live albums Category:John Taylor related